Ukraine

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Chris Coghlan

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The EU has set out work linking the issues around assets to reparation payments. We welcome that work and we believe that there is a strong basis to go forward. We need to do so in a co-ordinated way and recognise the importance of supporting Ukraine.

[Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)]

I welcome the Government’s progress on the frozen Russian assets, but it is disappointing that, as yet, they are allocated only to recovery and not military capability, because Russia is spending $40 billion more than Ukraine and her Western allies on the war in Ukraine. The courage of Ukrainian forces has brought Russia to a standstill, but does the Foreign Secretary agree that if those frozen assets were used today to close and exceed that military spending gap, Ukraine would have a path not just to stop Russia but to win?

[Yvette Cooper]

We are already increasing UK military support, and we want to see that happen across the board. The way to put the greatest pressure on Russia will always be through a mix of different measures, including direct defence support, support for the resilience of the Ukraine people through their basic energy infrastructure and ensuring that they and their communities can keep going, and by establishing strong economic pressure on Russia, so that it is put in a position where it has to change course. All those things need to happen at once to have a significant impact on the way that Putin is behaving.

Borders and Asylum

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Chris Coghlan

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

We have a strong history of leading on international standards and international legal frameworks. Of course, laws and the ways in which they are interpreted need to move with the times and keep up to date with the new challenges, including in a world of mass communications where we face very different kinds of challenges than we did 20 or 50 years ago. My hon. Friend is right to say that the UK has always played that leading role in defining those standards, and in making sure that other countries abide by international laws. We will lose out and not get the kind of international co-operation that we need if we just rip up that international law and co-operation.

[Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)]

I am proud that this country helps refugees, and I am intensely proud that I spent years building a charity working with Rwandan refugees from the genocide, but in Horley there have been two serious criminal incidents in the past three months relating to the Four Points hotel. My constituents have legitimate safety concerns, although the police have acted promptly, so what steps is the Home Secretary taking to ensure that the Four Points hotel is closed as an asylum hotel as soon as possible?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member makes an important point. We want all asylum hotels to close, including in his constituency, and we need to do that in a controlled and orderly manner. We also need to strengthen the arrangements, to ensure that the law and the rules are enforced and that public safety considerations are taken seriously as part of the management of the whole asylum and immigration system. That is why we are developing new partnerships between policing, immigration enforcement, the Home Office and asylum accommodation providers. It is immensely important that there is proper shared information and stronger arrangements to ensure that criminality, wherever is found, it is properly and swiftly tackled.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Yvette Cooper and Chris Coghlan

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right; we need to ensure that the police have the powers that they need and are able to act swiftly. We want to make it easier for them to crush bikes more quickly as well as to seize them and take them off the streets, and that requires additional neighbourhood police. In Kent, that means an additional 65 neighbourhood police officers, and there are similar numbers for Hampshire.

[Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)]

Many residents in my constituency complain about motorcycle noise from illegally modified exhausts. Can the Home Secretary inform me of her plans to help local police and local authorities address this nuisance?

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Member is right to raise this issue. Noise and speed are used deliberately in order to harass people and intimidate local residents. It is disgraceful antisocial behaviour, and it is really unfair on local families. That is why we need to give the police stronger powers to clamp down on it.